I came across an article not too long ago about a woman in South Carolina who lost two Labs and used any means available to find the dogs including searching by helicopter and offering a $1,000 reward:  http://www.examiner.com/article/desperate-dog-owner-searches-for-lost-dogs-with-helicopter-offers-large-reward

The article got me thinking about how often I see rewards for dog returns and about the different sums involved. Sometimes I see sign locally for a $100 or $250 reward and this was probably one of the biggest rewards I have seen. I am sure there are bigger rewards offered all the time which makes sense given dogs are family members, but what I had never really sat down and thought about is whether people actually accept the rewards when returning the dogs and what the optimal reward size is. Is bigger always better?

This is not a moral question meant to judge people that accept the reward offers-I am just curious. Perhaps the answer varies by age group or how much effort/inconvenience was involved en route to the person returning the pet.

I just googled it and saw an interesting post that said not to make your reward too large if you lose your pet because it might lead people to over-value the animal and not want to return him or her thinking they are very valuable. I think this is probably right-the advice said to just state there is a reward without identifying the amount. Still haven’t found any guesses with respect to accepted rewards but I will update this if I do.